Kitui agricultural training center: how much impact does it have in Kitui county?

Kitui agricultural training center occupies a prime piece of land, close to Kitui’s Kunda Kindu bus terminus and adjacent to Kitui’s Medical Training College (Kitui KMTC). One question that is often posed with regard to the Kitui agricultural training center is as to how much impact it has in the county.

In understanding the impact of Kitui agricultural training center, you have to understand that the people who graduate from the center end up becoming ‘influencers’ in their local communities. Thus, if person X (say, Mutiso or Mwangangi or Mwende) goes through Kitui agricultural training center, he comes out with knowledge on the best crop husbandry and animal husbandry techniques. Then once he goes back to his village and puts those techniques in practice, his neighbors are likely to notice the improved productivity of his farm. And that is likely to push them into adopting the same crop and animal husbandry techniques. And that is likely to have a ripple effect, as more and more people adopt those proper farming techniques from observation… So in this case, you have the graduate of Kitui agricultural training center inspiring people to adopt proper agricultural practices without having to do any extension work directly…

I therefore think that the greatest impact of Kitui agricultural training center is to the extent that the people who graduate from it end up becoming ‘influencers’ in their local communities.  They influence the local communities to embrace proper agricultural practices, leading to improved agricultural productivity. It is therefore easy to see that were it not for the likes of Kitui agricultural training center, agricultural productivity in Kitui would be much lower than it currently is. Still, if Kitui agricultural training center is to have even more profound impact in the county, there is need for more investment to be made in the center. There may also be need to increase the intake, because moving around Kitui county, you still see gaps – as there are still many areas where modern agricultural practices are yet to be embraced. You find people farming the way it had always been done for years, in spite of today's dwidling land holdings.